Charlie, presente!/Feds Plan to Strip Endangered Species Act Protection From Gray Wolves Across United States

Friends,

It is with great sadness that I am sharing the death of Charlie, my friend Fran’s wonderful cat.  Charlie and I have been buddies for some ten years, and I will him very much.  He had a good home and a good life.

Kagiso,

Max

CONTACT: Center for Biological Diversity

Noah Greenwald, (503) 484-7495

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
March 1, 2012

Feds Plan to Strip Endangered Species Act Protection From Gray Wolves Across United States

Propose Exceptions in Special Cases Only: Subspecies, Northwest/Northeast Regions

PORTLAND, Ore. - March 1 - The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service today recommended removing federal protections from gray wolves that remain on the endangered species list after wolves in the northern Rocky Mountains and upper Midwest had their protections stripped last year. The move could be devastating to wolf recovery. Fish and Wildlife conceded it will still consider protection for subspecies or breeding populations (including Mexican gray wolves, a recognized subspecies) and for populations in the Pacific Northwest and Northeast; its recommendation came in a five-year review of the Endangered Species Act listing for gray wolves in the lower 48.

“The agency’s saying protection for wolves should be taken away from them anywhere they don’t live right now, even if they lived in those places for thousands of years before we exterminated them and even if those places are still good habitat for them,” said Noah Greenwald, endangered species director at the Center for Biological Diversity, which has worked for decades to restore wolves. “If this approach had been taken with, say, bald eagles, we’d never have recovered eagles across much of the Midwest, Southeast or Northeast, where they didn’t exist when they were protected. This is a frightening example of the Fish and Wildlife Service abandoning the recovery mandate of the Endangered Species Act.”

According to the agency, ongoing status reviews covering the Mexican wolf, northwestern wolves and eastern wolves in New England will conclude by Sept. 30, 2012, at which point the agency signaled national-level protection for wolves would cease, likely including protections for wolves anywhere they are not currently found — such as the Northeast, Great Plains and central Rocky Mountains.   

“Scientists have identified extensive wolf habitat in the Northeast, Southwest, Rocky Mountains and West Coast,” said Greenwald. “Protections should stay in place in all these wild areas, and recovery plans should be written allowing wolves to return safely.” 

Wolves may retain protections in the Northwest, including portions of California and western Washington and Oregon, where wolves have recently been establishing packs. Two packs currently reside in western Washington, and wolves have been moving west from newly established packs in eastern Oregon — including a wolf known as OR-7, or Journey, that traveled 1,000 miles to become the first wolf in California in almost 90 years. The situation is less clear in the Northeast, where there are currently no breeding packs, although there are wolves a mere 100 miles north of the Canadian border.   

“We hope wolves in the Southwest and Northwest will retain protection and gain the benefits of scientific recovery plans,” said Greenwald. “But stripping protections for wolves in the central Rocky Mountains of Utah and Colorado, and in verdant New England where overlarge deer populations are devouring tree seedlings and stopping forests from regrowing, hurts these ecosystems and is tragic for pioneering wolves.”

In the vacuum of federal leadership for wolf recovery, and in light of OR-7’s ongoing two-month-long journey into Northern California, a hopeful precursor of other wolves’ arrivals, the Center petitioned the California Fish and Game Commission on Monday to list wolves as endangered under the California Endangered Species Act and to develop a state wolf recovery plan.

“Wolves are a keystone species that have shaped North American landscapes for eons,” said Greenwald. “They restore natural balance and in the process benefit a host of species.”

Scientists have found that wolf reintroduction to Yellowstone National Park and central Idaho in 1995 forced elk to move more, and in so doing allowed for recovery of streamside vegetation, helping beavers, fish and songbirds. Wolves also benefit scavenging animals such as weasels, eagles, wolverines and bears; and they increased numbers of foxes and pronghorns in Yellowstone and nearby Grand Teton National Park by controlling coyotes, which wolves regard as competitors.

“If we want to keep any part of America wild, we need to keep our wolves,” said Greenwald.

Read more about the Center’s work to save wolves.

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At the Center for Biological Diversity, we believe that the welfare of human beings is deeply linked to nature - to the existence in our world of a vast diversity of wild animals and plants. Because diversity has intrinsic value, and because its loss impoverishes society, we work to secure a future for all species, great and small, hovering on the brink of extinction. We do so through science, law, and creative media, with a focus on protecting the lands, waters, and climate that species need to survive.

 

Source URL: http://www.commondreams.org/newswire/2012/03/01-4

 

Donations can be sent to the Baltimore Nonviolence Center, 325 E. 25th St., Baltimore, MD 21218.  Ph: 410-366-1637; Email: mobuszewski [at] verizon.net. Go to http://baltimorenonviolencecenter.blogspot.com/

 

"The master class has always declared the wars; the subject class has always fought the battles. The master class has had all to gain and nothing to lose, while the subject class has had nothing to gain and everything to lose--especially their lives." Eugene Victor Debs

 

Baltmore Activist Alert - Part 2

31] Olney peace vigil – Mar. 3

32] West Chester, PA demo – Mar. 3

33] Silent vigil at Capitol – Mar. 3

34] Silent Death Walk – Mar. 3

35] Margaret Atwood's poetry – Mar. 3

36] Palestinian graffiti – Mar. 3

37] Living wage union – Mar. 3

38] What's AIPAC? – Mar. 3

39] Support L'Arche – Mar. 3

40] Homelessness – Mar. 4

41] AIPAC Action Day – Mar. 4

42] Get on Bridge for Peace – Mar. 4

43] Holocaust book discussion – Mar. 4

44] Peace Conference – Mar. 4

45] Philadelphia Peace Vigil – Mar. 4

46] Pentagon Vigil – Mar. 5

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31] – Friends House, 17715 Meeting House Rd., Sandy Spring, MD 20860, hosts a peace vigil every Saturday, 10:30 to 11:30 AM, on the corner of Rt. 108 and Georgia Ave. in Olney, MD.  The next vigil is Mar. 3. Call Chuck Harker at 301-570-7167. 

 

32] –  Each Saturday, 11 AM – 1 PM, Chester County Peace Movement holds a peace vigil in West Chester in front of the Chester County Courthouse, High & Market Sts. Go to www.ccpeace.org. Email ccpeacemovement@aol.com.

 

33] – There will be a peace vigil on the West Lawn of the Capitol at noon on Mar. 3. Look for the blue banner with the message, "Seek Peace and Pursue It.--Psalms 34:14." The vigil lasts one hour and is silent except when one responds to the occasional questions. Go to http://www.quaker.org/langleyhill/seekpeace.htm or email seekpeacevigil@yahoo.com.

 

34] –  On Sat., Mar. 3 from noon to 1 PM, join a PHILADELPHIA CENTER CITY SILENT DEATH WALK at corner of 12th & Market Sts. Stop the Killing/End the Wars - Protest U.S. Drone Wars in Pakistan, Afghanistan, and Yemen. Wear warm black clothes. White masks will be provided.  RSVP to Marge Van Cleef at 267-763-1644.

 

35] –  Though she is arguably more notably known for her contribution to modern fiction, Margaret Atwood's poetry is not to be overlooked. Join the Baltimore Poetry Discussion Group's meeting on Atwood's poetry to find out more about this author and poet's great achievements. Coffee and refreshments provided. The event is on for Sat., Mar. 3 at noon at the HI Baltimore Hostel, 17 W. Mulberry St. Call 410-576-8880 or go to http://baltimorehostel.org/.

 

36] – The Committee for Palestinian Rights, Howard County, Maryland, is hosting William Parry as part of his book launch "Against the Wall: The Art of Resistance in Palestine" on Sat., Mar. 3 at 2 PM at the Howard County Central Library, Columbia, MD 21044.  Parry, a London-based photojournalist & author who contributes regularly to the Washington Report on Middle East Affairs (WRMEA), has a new book featuring photos of graffiti and street art that has transformed Israel's apartheid wall in the occupied West Bank into a living canvas of resistance and solidarity. The photos  mirror the wall's toll on lives and livelihoods and are coupled with interviews that show the hardship it has brought to tens of thousands of Palestinians, preventing their access to work, education, families, vital medical care and places of worship.  Email CPR_Maryland@yahoo.com.

 

37] – Woven Together: Students & Workers Bringing Living-Wage Union Apparel to Your Community is happening on Sat., Mar. 3 from 5 PM to 7 PM at Busboys & Poets @ 5th & K Sts., 1025 5th Street NW, WDC. 20001. Because of the victory of more than a decade of organizing by the Fedotrazonas Union in the Dominican Republic and United Students Against Sweatshops, Alta Gracia is a ground-breaking garment factory that pays a living-wage of over three times the local minimum wage. Workers at Alta Gracia are treated with respect and have an independent union -- a voice on the job. Hear from Maritza Vargas and Ana Doñe Mariñez, garment workers whose families and community are being transformed by living wages and international solidarity.

38] – Alison Weir will speak about AIPAC: What it is, who its allies are, why it's dangerous and how to stop it.  The talk is taking place on Sat., Mar. 3 from 5:30 to 7:30 PM at: Mount Vernon Place United Methodist Church, main conference room, 900 Massachusetts Ave.

 

39] – On Sat. Mar. 3 at 7 PM, attend L'Arche Solidarity Night and help raise $2,000 to support L'Arche communities around the world. It takes place at The Falls Church Nicholson Auditorium, 115 E. Fairfax St., Falls Church, VA 22046. There is a $10 suggested donation.  Contact Michelle Wirth at 202.232.4539 or info@larche-gwdc.org.   

 

40] – Usually, the Baltimore Ethical Society, 306 W. Franklin St., Suite 102, Baltimore, MD 21201-4661, meets on Sundays, and generally there is a speaker and discussion from 10:30 to 11:30 AM.  On Sun., Mar. 4, the topic is "Understanding Homelessness in Baltimore: A Discussion of Issues" by Vanessa Borotz, coordinator, "Faces of Homelessness" Speakers' Bureau.  Often homelessness is perceived as an abstract social problem. Those who experience homelessness are seen as the sources of their own misfortunes, and the socio-economic policies and practices that give rise to homelessness are then too easily ignored. The "Faces of Homelessness" Speakers' Bureau works to break down this abstraction and its attendant misconceptions and stereotypes by exposing the underlying causes of homelessness and bringing to light the reality of lived experience. The Bureau is a program of the National Coalition of the Homeless, which is supported locally by the collaborative efforts of Health Care for the Homeless, Beans and Bread, and Project Plase. The speakers in this program — having all experienced homelessness—are the true experts on the topic.  Call 410-581-2322 or visit www.baltimoreethicalsociety.org.

 

41] – The main action day for Occupy AIPAC is on Sun., Mar. 4 from 11 AM to 2 PM.  Rally at the Convention Center, All Out for NO WAR ON IRAN during AIPAC Convention, corner of Massachusetts Ave. and 9th St.  There will be creative acts all afternoon.

 

42] – Maryland Bridges for Peace welcomes you to stand for peace Sundays from noon (or thereabouts) to 1 PM on the Spa Creek Bridge in Annapolis.  Contact Lucy at 410-263-7271 or mdbridgesforpeace@toadmail.com. Signs are not allowed to be on a stick or pole.   If there is interest, people will be standing on the Stoney Creek Bridge on Fort Smallwood Road in Pasadena [410-437-5379 or magicalgodmom@aol.com]. Go to http://BridgePeace.blogspot.com/.

 

43] – On Sun., Mar. 4 at 1 PM at the Edward A. Myerberg Senior Center, 3101 Fallstaff Road.  Hear a discussion "Life and Loss in the Shadow of the Holocaust" by authors professors Rebecca Boehling and Uta Larkey.  The book traces a single Jewish family before, during and after the Holocaust in this latest installment of the Schapiro Lecture Series.  Call 410-358-6856 or go to www.myerbergsenoircenter.org.

 

44] – On Sun., Mar. 4 from 1 to 5 PM, there is a Peace Conference – Friends Meeting School, 3232 Green Valley Road, Ijamsville MD 21754 - to reflect on creating peace to self, community and world. The presenters are Irene McHenry, Friends Council on Education, Rev. Kelly Bird, Justice and Witness Ministries for the youth and John Davis, The Farm of Peace/Shadhiliyya Sufi Center East.   Call 301-798-0288 or email hwilson@friendsmeetingschool.org. 

 

45] – Every Sunday, 4 to 5 PM, there is a Quaker Peace Vigil at Independence Mall, N. side of Market between 5th and 6th Sts., Philadelphia. Call 215-421-5811.

 

46] – There is a weekly Pentagon Peace Vigil from 7 to 8 AM on Mondays, since 1987, outside the Pentagon Metro stop.  The next vigil is Mon., Mar. 5, and it is sponsored by the Dorothy Day Catholic Worker.  Call 202-882-9649.

To be continued.

 

Donations can be sent to the Baltimore Nonviolence Center, 325 E. 25th St., Baltimore, MD 21218.  Ph: 410-366-1637; Email: mobuszewski [at] verizon.net. Go to http://baltimorenonviolencecenter.blogspot.com/

 

"The master class has always declared the wars; the subject class has always fought the battles. The master class has had all to gain and nothing to lose, while the subject class has had nothing to gain and everything to lose--especially their lives." Eugene Victor Debs

Celebrate Marriage Equality at New Ways Ministry's Symposium!

Dear Friends,

Maryland is celebrating this week--and will be doing so for at least the remainder of the month--because our Catholic Governor Martin O'Malley just yesterday signed a law making marriage equality the law of the land in our state!

New Ways Ministry was honored that our co-founder, Sister Jeannine Gramick, was invited to attend the signing ceremony for this new law.  You can read all about her experience there, and New Ways Ministry's involvement in supporting the bill, on our blog, Bondings 2.0.  You can access this blog post by clicking on this link: http://wp.me/p21uEP-nz
 
New Ways Ministry is even more honored by the fact that Governor O'Malley will be joining us and the hundreds of Catholics from across the nation who will be attending our 7th National Symposium, From Water to Wine:  Lesbian/Gay Catholics and the Church, March 15-17th, in Baltimore, Maryland.  If you haven't already done so, please consider registering for this exciting educational event. We've attached a PDF brochure to this email for your convenience. 

If you can't participate for the entire three days, you might want to consider registering for Friday only, which has the main part of the Symposium program, and is also the day that Governor O'Malley will be joining us.  A special registration fee for Friday only is one of the options on the brochure.

Don't delay!  The Symposium is only two weeks away!  You won't want to miss this historic moment to celebrate with the people and Governor of Maryland, as well as so many Catholics from across the nation who support LGBT equality and justice!

I hope to see you there!

Sincerely,
Francis DeBernardo


Francis DeBernardo Executive Director New Ways Ministry 4012 29th Street Mount Rainier, Maryland 20712 phone: 301-277-5674 email: director@newwaysministry.org website: www.newwaysministry.org

The Menace of Present and Future Drone Warfare

 

The Menace of Present and Future Drone Warfare by Richard Falk February 13, 2012

After the atomic bombs were dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, and the colossal scale of devastation disclosed, there was a momentary embrace of sanity and rationality by world leaders and cultural commentators. There was a realization that living with such weaponry was at best a precarious journey into the future, and far more likely, an appointment with unprecedented human catastrophe if not apocalypse. This dark mood of foreboding did produce some gestures toward nuclear disarmament tabled initially by the U.S. Government, but in a form that reasonably struck others at the time, especially the Soviet Union, as a bad bargain—the U.S. was proposing getting rid of the weapons for the present, but retaining the materials, the technology, and the experience needed to win handily any nuclear rearmament race. In other words, the United States offered the world a Faustian Bargain that rested on bestowing trust upon the dominant geopolitical actor on the global stage, and depended crucially on Soviet willingness to go along on such a basis, an option that never seriously tempted the Stalinist approach to world order.

It should not seem surprising then or now that given the political consciousness of those running the strongest and richest modern states, that this kind of one-sided deal was not an attractive response to nuclear weaponry. Even the governments most closely allied with the United States in World War II, the United Kingdom and France, were unwilling to forego the status and claimed security benefits of becoming second tier nuclear weapons state. And of course, America’s rivals, first, the Soviet Union and later China, never hesitated to develop their own nuclear weapons capability, interpreting security and global stature through the universal geopolitical optic of countervailing hard power, that is, maximizing military capabilities to defend and attack. Thus disarmament faded into the obscurity of wishful thinking, and in its place a costly and unstable nuclear arms race ensued during the whole of the Cold War, with an array of situations that came close to subjecting humanity to the specter of a nuclear war. That this worst of all nightmares never materialized provides little reassurance about the future, especially if public and elite complacency about the risk of nuclear warfare persists.

What is less appreciated than this failure to eliminate the weaponry in the immediate aftermath of World War II was the adoption and implementation of a Plan B.  The United States pushed hard for the negotiations that led in 1968 to the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty, which was successfully marketed to most states in the world. The NPT represented a one-sided bargain in which non-weapons states agreed to give up their weapons option in exchange for two commitments by nuclear weapons states: to share fully the non-military benefits of nuclear technology, especially relating to producing energy that was early on expected to be both clean and cheap; and to undertake in good faith efforts to achieve nuclear disarmament as the earliest possible time, and even to go further, and to work toward the negotiation of general and complete disarmament. This nonproliferation agreement over the years, although a success in Western realist circles, has experienced a number of discrediting setbacks: a few countries with nuclear weapons ambitions stayed outside the treaty and managed to acquire the weaponry without adverse consequences to themselves (India, Pakistan, Israel), while others (Iraq, Iran) have been attacked or threatened because they were suspected of seeking nuclear weapons; there has been a virtual failure of will to seek nuclear disarmament despite a unanimous World Court reaffirmation of the NPT obligations in its 1996 Advisory Opinion on The Legality of Nuclear Weapons; and there has been a discriminatory pattern of geopolitical management of the NPT, most notably ignoring Israel’s nuclear weapons program while treating Iran’s alleged pursuit of a breakout capability as justifying recourse to war.

This nonproliferation approach has been accompanying by three massive forms of deception that continues to mislead public opinion and discourage serious debate about the benefits of nuclear disarmament even at this late stage: First, the fallacious implication that the states that do not possess nuclear weapons are currently more dangerous for world peace than the states that possess, develop, and deploy these weapons of mass destruction, and have used them in the past; secondly, that periodic managerial moves among nuclear weapons states, in the name of arms control, are steps in the direction of nuclear disarmament—nothing could be further from the truth as arms control aims to save money and stabilize reliance on nuclear weaponry by way of deterrence, and is generally averse to getting rid of the weaponry; thirdly, the phony claim, endorsed by Barack Obama in his Prague speech of 2009 on the theme, that obtaining a world without nuclear weapons is to be sure an ‘ultimate’ goal to be affirmed, but that it is not a political project that can be achieved in real time by way of a phased and verified nuclear disarmament treaty. In actuality, there is no genuine obstacle to prudently phasing out these weapons over the course of a decade or so. What blocks the elimination of nuclear weapons is only the dysfunctional refusal of the nine nuclear weapons states to give up the weaponry.

It should be appreciated that this two-tier approach to nuclear weaponry is a departure from the approach taken to other weapons of mass destruction—that is, either prohibiting a weapon altogether or allowing its use in a manner consistent with the principles of customary international law bearing on the conduct of war (proportionality, discrimination, necessity, and humanity). Regimes of unconditional prohibition exist with respect to biological and chemical weapons, and are respected, at least outwardly, by the main global geopolitical actors. Why the difference? The atom bombs dropped on Japan were to a degree, despite the havoc, legitimized because used by the prevailing side in what was claimed to be military necessity and perceived as a just war. The contrast with the prohibition of chemical weapons widely used by the German losing side in World War I illustrates the lawmaking role of geopolitically dominant political actors that impose their will on the evolution of international law, especially in the security domain.

The U.S. reliance on attack drones to engage in targeted killing, especially in third countries (Yemen, Somalia, Ethiopia, Pakistan) has raised controversial international law issues of sovereign rights in interaction with lethal acts of war, especially those far removed from the zone of live combat. The increasing reliance on drones during the Obama presidency has produced unintended deaths, civilians in the vicinity of the target and attacks directed at the wrong personnel, as with the NATO helicopter attack that killed 24 Pakistani soldiers who had been deployed near the Afghan border on November 25, 2011, provoking a major international incident (although not a drone attack, it was linked by angered Palistani officials to similar mis-targeting by drones). There are also unconfirmed reports of drone follow up raids at sites of targeted killing that seem directed at those who mount rescue operations or arrange funerals for prior victims. As with the Bush torture debate the political leadership in Washington has turned for justifications to government lawyers who have responded by developing drone legal briefs that seem somewhat analogous to the notorious Yoo ‘torture memos.’ There are, however, some differences in the two contexts that work against equating the two controversies about post-9/11 war making.

For one thing, torture has a long history, having been practiced by governments for centuries, and its relatively recent prohibition is embedded in a clear norm criminalizing torture that is contained in the International Torture Convention of 1984. Torture is also enumerated as one of the Crimes Against Humanity in the statute of the International Criminal Court. Drone technology adapted to serve as a battlefield weapon is, in contrast, of extremely recent origin. Nothing in international law exists that is comparably specific with respect to drone attacks to the legal repudiation of torture. There is some resemblance between efforts by Obama law officials to stretch the conception of self-defense beyond previously understood limits to justify targeted killing and the Bush lawyers who claimed that water boarding was not torture. Expanding the prior understanding of the legal right of self-defense represents a self-serving reinterpretation of this core international legal norm by the U.S. Government. It seems opportunistic and unpersuasive and seems unlikely to be generally accepted as a reframing of the right of self-defense under international law.

Perhaps, the most important difference between the torture and drone debates has to do with future implications. Although there are some loopholes involving extraordinary rendition and secret CIA operated overseas black sites, torture has been credibly prohibited by President Obama. Beyond this, the repudiation of torture has been understood in a manner that conforms to the general international consensus rather than the narrowed conception insisted upon by the Bush-era legalists. In contrast, drones seem destined to be central to operational planning for future military undertakings of the United States, with sharply escalating appropriations to support both the purchase of increasing numbers and varieties of drone. The government is  engaging in a major research program designed to make drones available for an expanding range of military missions and to serve as the foundation of a revolutionary transformation of the way America will fight future wars. Some of these revolutionary features are already evident: casualty-free military missions; subversion of territorial sovereignty; absence of transparency and accountability; further weakening of political constraints on recourse to war.

Future war scenarios involve attacks by drones swarms, interactive squadrons of drones re-targeting while in a combat zone without human participation, and covert attacks using mini-drones. A further serious concern is the almost certain access to drone technology by private sectors actors. These musings are not science fiction, but well financed undertakings at  or beyond the development stage. It is in these settings of fhere, especially, where the analogy to nuclear weapons seems most pertinent, and discouraging. Given the amount invested and the anticipated profitability and utility of drones, it may already be too late to interrupt their development, deployment, and expanding sphere of use. Unlike nuclear weaponry, already some 50 countries reportedly possess drones, mainly adapted to surveillance. As with nuclear weaponry, the United States, and other leading political actors, will not agree to comprehensive prohibitions on the use of drones for lethal purposes.

If this line of reasoning is generally correct, there are two likely futures for attack drones: an unregulated dispersion of the weaponry to public and private actors with likely strategic roles undermining traditional international law limits on war making and public order; or a new non-proliferation regime for drones that permits all states to possess and use surveillance drones within sovereign space and allows some states to make discretionary use of drones globally and for attack purposes until a set on constraining regulations can be agreed upon by a list of designated states. That is, drone military technology will perpetuate the two-tier concept of world order that has taken shape in relation to nuclear weapons, and reflects the consensus that both nuclear disarmament and unrestricted proliferation of nuclear weaponry are unacceptable. In this regard, a counter-proliferation regime for drones is a lesser evil, but still an evil.

The technological momentum that has built up in relation to drones is probably too strong to be challenged politically. The military applications are too attractive, the technology is of a cutting edge fantasy quality, the political appeal of war fighting that involves minimum human risk is too great. At the same time, for much of the world this kind of unfolding future delivers a somber message of a terrifying unfolding vulnerability. At present, there seems to be no way to insulate societies from either intrusive and perpetual surveillance or the prospect of targeted killing and devastation conducted from a remote location. It may be contended that such an indictment of drones exaggerates their novelty. Has not the world lived for decades with weapons of mass destruction possessed by a small number of non-accountable governments and deliverable anywhere on the planet in a matter of minutes? This is superficially true, and frightening enough, but the catastrophic quality of nuclear weaponry and its release of atmospheric radioactivity operates as an inhibitor of uncertain reliability, while with drone their comparative inexpensiveness and non-apocalyptic character makes it much easier to drift mindlessly until an unanticipated day of reckoning occurs by which time all possibilities of control will have been long lost.

As with nuclear weaponry, climate change, and respect for the carrying capacity of the earth, we who are alive at present may be the last who have even the possibility of upholding the life prospects of future generations. It seems late, but still not too late to act responsibly, but we will not be able to make such claims very much longer. Part of the challenge is undoubtedly structural. For most purposes, global governance depends on cooperation among sovereign states, but in matters of war and peace the world order system remains resolutely vertical and under the control of geopolitical actors, perhaps as few as one, who are unwilling to restrict their military activities to the confines of territorial boundaries, but insist on their prerogative to manage coercively the planet as a whole. When it comes to drones the fate of humanity is squeezed between the impotence of state-centric logic and the grandiose schemes of the geopolitical mentality.

Richard Falk is Chair of the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation and Professor Emeritus at Princeton University.

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© Nuclear Age Peace Foundation 2012    www.WagingPeace.org

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Donations can be sent to the Baltimore Nonviolence Center, 325 E. 25th St., Baltimore, MD 21218.  Ph: 410-366-1637; Email: mobuszewski [at] verizon.net. Go to http://baltimorenonviolencecenter.blogspot.com/

 

"The master class has always declared the wars; the subject class has always fought the battles. The master class has had all to gain and nothing to lose, while the subject class has had nothing to gain and everything to lose--especially their lives." Eugene Victor Debs

 

See DVD of AND JUSTICE FOR ALL on March 2/Arrested for Meditating? Why it's Radical to Stay Nonviolent in the Face of Police Brutality

The Hiroshima-Nagasaki Commemoration Committee, Chesapeake Physicians for Social Responsibility and Baltimore Quaker Peace and Justice Committee of Homewood and Stony Run Meetings are hosting the FILM & SOCIAL CONSCIOUSNESS DVD SERIES.  The third film in the series AND JUSTICE FOR ALL [USA, 1979] will be shown on Fri., Mar. 2 at Homewood Friends Meetinghouse, 3107 N. Charles St., Baltimore 21218.  The Meeting hosts a potluck dinner from 6 to 7 PM on First Fridays after the vigil.  At 7 PM, the DVD will be shown with a discussion to follow.  There is no charge, and refreshments will be available.  Call Max at 410-366-1637. The film is directed by Norman Jewison from an Oscar-nominated script by Valerie Curtin and Barry Levinson.  It stars Al Pacino, John Forsythe, Christine Lahti, Jack Warden and Lee Strasberg. When a judge is charged with rape, Arthur Kirkland [Pacino] is forced to defend him. An idealistic defense attorney in Baltimore, he has a moral and legal dilemma to defend this martinet, who is probably guilty.  He would rather be exposing corruption and seeking "justice for all," the last four words in the Pledge of Allegiance.  The film shows many scenes of downtown Baltimore, including the courthouse area, a scene running around the Washington Monument/Mount Vernon Place, and Fort McHenry. Pacino received an Academy Award nomination.  Bill Hughes, videographer extraordinaire and a member of the bar, will lead the discussion.    Arrested for Meditating? Why it's Radical to Stay Nonviolent in the Face of Police Brutality By Sarah van Gelder, YES! Magazine Posted on February 29, 2012, Printed on March 2, 2012 http://www.alternet.org/story/154352/arrested_for_meditating_why_it%27s_radical_to_stay_nonviolent_in_the_face_of_police_brutality Occupy Oakland has been at the forefront of some of Occupy’s most visible actions—a massive general strike on November 2, a shutdown of the Port of Oakland, and attempts to occupy vacant buildings. And it’s become known for the brutality of police actions, especially the case of Iraq War veteran Scott Olsen, who was hit by a tear-gas canister fired by police and suffered a severe head injury. It has also been the center of much controversy over tactics—especially the tactics of the Black Bloc. These tactics are turning the San Francisco Bay area public against the Occupy movement, according to a report in the East Bay Express. Anonymous recently accused Black Bloc members of being misguided, harmful, and perhaps agent provocateurs, and threatened those involved in vandalism in a video posted on YouTube: “Consider this an act of diplomacy before we start doxing your asses all over the Internet and paying special attention to personally ruining your lives." We turned to Pancho Ramos Stierle for some insights into the question of Occupy tactics. Pancho was arrested Nov. 14 2011, during the police raid on Occupy Oakland, while meditating. Pancho came to the United States from Mexico to study astrophysics in the Ph.D. program at the University of California, Berkeley, but left the program out of opposition to the university’s research related to nuclear weapons development. We talked to him about police violence in Oakland, his own arrest, deportations, and, especially, his insights into the controversies over tactics in the Occupy movement. Sarah van Gelder: Could you tell the story of what happened the night that the Oakland site was raided by the police and you were arrested? Pancho Ramos-Stierle: Since the Occupy movement started, we’ve been seeing the Oakland police escalating their violence. The first raid happened early in the morning, and the city of Oakland spent $2 million on rubber bullets, tear gas, and helicopters to repress people who were peacefully gathering. In the same two days not one or two but five elementary schools were closed. Today, you can see an elementary school that has been converted into a police station here in Oakland. I’m telling you this to set the tone for what happened the day we were arrested. We knew the city of Oakland was bringing police from all around and they were staying in the Coliseum, which is one mile from here. So we said, okay, if they want to escalate their violence, how do we escalate our nonviolence? On the night before the raid, we heard the helicopters and the hundreds of police that were descending on the Oakland downtown. So at 3:30 a.m., we bicycled to the Ogawa-Grant Plaza. We wanted to set a tone of positive energy and also to claim the space. We'd been meditating and doing yoga in public parks for the last eight months because we want to let people know that these spaces are our spaces. We want to bring calmness and a different energy. So if you have the riot police coming with tear gas and pepper spray and all their weapons, we have a more powerful weapon, courage and stillness—it's kindness, it's compassion, it's generosity, it's the small things, but when you add them up that makes a pretty strong army. So we sat in receptive silence from 3:30 a.m. to the time when we were arrested around 6 a.m. Sarah van Gelder: So what happened during the actual arrest? Pancho Ramos-Stierle: On Mondays we practice silence, and the police officer who arrested us thought that we were deaf because we were not speaking. So he got a notebook and a pen. It was very considerate of him, and I could feel his energy shift a little, and so when he gave me the notebook I wrote, "On Mondays, I practice silence, but I would like you to hear that I love you." When he read that, he had this big smile and looked me in the eye and he said, "Thank you. But, well, if you don't move, you're going to be arrested. Are you moving or not?" So I wrote back, "I am meditating." He said, "OK, arrest them one by one." That was one of my favorite moments from the whole ordeal. Sarah van Gelder: Who else was sitting with you? Pancho Ramos-Stierle: My housemate Adelaja. We are also now on a mission to bring together people with different skin colors. He's a six foot five beautiful brother with black skin, and I have brown skin, and we have another brother here with white skin, so we're trying to be together.  Sarah van Gelder: Tell me about your experience in prison. Were you able to keep your nonviolent witness going while you were behind bars? Pancho Ramos-Stierle: Before being in jail, it was hard for me to understand what Martin Luther King Jr. and Gandhi meant when they said that prisons are the temples of freedom. It's clear that they can do many things to your body and try to oppress you and use psychological violence. But there's something so strong inside each of us, the human spirit, that they can not reach. They can put you in shackles and cold cement cells, and feed you horrible food, and put you in solitary confinement, but there's no way that they can reach the human spirit. That was powerful—to find once again that that part is sacred. I think that was the only thing that kept me sane and healthy in that very dehumanizing environment. That's what I would like to share with people—that it is time for the spiritual people to get active and the activist people to get spiritual so that we can have total revolution of the human spirit. Because we have the idea that the self-indulgent people are just meditating—they are going to caves and meditation centers while all this madness is happening, or you have people at these meditation center that are asking how can you bring peace and calm and harmony to the world if you do not have that in your heart? I think that we need both now, and that we need to combine this inner revolution with the outer revolution to have the total revolution of the spirit. Then you can build the alternatives to a collapsing system built on structural violence. I believe that nine out of ten actions must be creating the community that we want to live in—we're talking about permaculture, independent media, restorative justice, gift economies, free currencies, and preventive medicine. By doing all that, we make ourselves stronger. If you are creating true alternatives to the collapsing, rotten system then you will naturally come into conflict with the power structure. Then the political action becomes necessary. So I think one out of ten actions should be obstructive—that is boycotts and protests and marches and nonviolent civil disobedience. But when we cultivate inner awareness, it's easy to see that what we need to do is spend most of our time creating the communities that we want to live in. Sarah van Gelder: Can you give me an example of how that plays out in movements for change? Pancho Ramos-Stierle: Gandhi showed us that the spinning wheel—part of the constructive program—was the center of the movement for the independence of the part of the planet we call India. At the time, the part of the planet we call India was selling cotton to the part of the planet we call England and buying back clothes. Gandhi figured out that if they started making their own clothes, then they could become self reliant, autonomous, and every single person could get plugged into this—women, men, elderly people, young people—social status really doesn't matter. So that created the foundation of a national movement. And once they had the alternative, they had bonfires with British clothing, and he said every person needs to spend at least one hour a day in the chain of creating your own clothing. Well now, a hundred years later, many of us believe that Gandhi’s spinning wheel of the 21st century is healthy and local food. Many of us believe healthy and local food is the foundation of social justice, and anyone can get plugged in, from compost to planting, watering the crops to going to the farmers market to cooking healthy food or just eating it or washing dishes anyone can spend an hour a day— men, women, doesn't matter social strata can get plugged into this chain. Once we have that constructive program, when we're solid in that, we can confront the pollution- and violence-based system more effectively. But we also need an inner "spinning wheel," so we must spend a couple of hours each day in receptive silence—any silent spiritual practice that brings awareness and equanimity to our hearts and minds—and put the inner revolution and the outer revolution together. Then we will be more than ready to make a bonfire out of passports, visas, and the devastating genetically modified Monsanto seeds. Sarah van Gelder: What do you say to Occupiers trying to negotiate differences in views about nonviolence?  Pancho Ramos-Stierle: Stop negotiating and start embodying the principles you believe in. Sometimes the most radical thing to do in a polluted violence-based system, is to be still. The mud settles to the bottom and we then have a clearer vision about our next steps—for example, facilitating the growth of the communities we want to live in or realizing that the most efficient tools against a system based on greed, fear, hurry, and violence, are generosity, courage, slowing-down, and loving-kindness. When the puzzle gets complicated, I always remember: our means are our ends in the making. To all occupiers and fellow satyagrahis I say: Liberate ourselves from the shackles of wage slavery. Liberate our minds and hearts from the oppression of colonialism. Let's occupy our beings with courage and loving-kindness. Sarah van Gelder: What should people know about Occupy Oakland, which has been confronted with some of the most police violence in the U.S., but has also had groups engage in property damage? Pancho Ramos-Stierle: "Occupy Oakland" has been happening for many decades. Most of the people with black and brown skin have been surviving the historical pain of racism and oppression for generations. When you have "food deserts"—perhaps a better description is "food apartheids"—and "liquor store forests" in Oakland, what can we expect? When police kill young fathers with impunity—like Oscar Grant—and harass hard-working, honest people—like migrants; when gangsters terrorize the community with shootings; when the corporate media broadcasts fear as much as they can; when the city of Oakland converts an elementary school into a police station, is there a clearer picture that this system is flawed? Violence is only a manifestation of a deep conflict. Violence is an expression of pain. It is a monologue offered by gangs, including the police—the most organized gang defending the interests of a few. The Native American peoples have been saying for centuries, "Beware what's happening to us because it could happen to you." Well, now people of black, brown, and white skin are experiencing it. It is the 99 percent. The tear gas canister that fractured the skull of brother Scott Olsen—an Iraq veteran with white skin—wasn't a random shot by a police officer targeting the body of the 24-year-old defiant veteran. It was a choice made by the state to impose, with violence, submission on movements that resist their decisions. A choice to threaten all of those who want to resist arrangements that suppress issues like meaningful livelihood, public health, security, housing, and public learning. In these so called "democracies" of today, state sovereignty takes the police form. There are police operations against all kind of "enemies." In these operations, not only the social movements are criminalized, but also whole categories of citizens, entire communities, and even ethnic groups. The ultimate healing will come when we all stop cooperating with the rotten system and when we start understanding that we are the 99 percent facilitating the healing of the 100 percent, one heart at a time. If we disobey with compassion and love in our hearts and minds, if we spend 90 percent of our energy creating the alternatives of a just, free, and liberated world, we will discover the joy to rebel against an imposed fear. We will be free from modern poverty and its two kinds of slaves: the intoxicated—the prisoners to the addiction of consumption, and those who aspire to get intoxicated—the prisoners of envy. It will be clear that our misery isn't caused by the siblings in corporations or most of the police officers or the army, but by our obedience to a flawed rule. We ourselves must be strengthened and changed, for we have to experience an inner independence even before the corporations, police states, and governments grant the outward one.  Sarah van Gelder: What comes next for you? You’ve been arrested and the fact that you are in the United States without documents has become very public. What will you do now? Pancho Ramos-Stierle: I'm going to keep doing what I’ve been doing. We as citizens of the world don't need silly papers and visas and passports—these are things that are totally new in the human consciousness. We paint imaginary lines in the dirt, and we need to erase those soon. So it really doesn't matter if I am here or if I am in the part of the planet we call Mexico. We really need to step up as citizens of the world. For example, right here in California the University of California is still involved in the development of nuclear weapons. So as citizens of the world we need to do everything within our reach to stop that madness. You can not deport the Milky Way from the sky; you cannot deport the Sun. If they send me to another part of this planet, great! I'll keep working. What's going to happen if I'm in Oaxaca or Chiapas or somewhere else in the part of the planet we call Mexico, I have no idea, sister, but I know that I'm going to keep trying to bring this message that the Earth is but one country and all living beings its citizens. When I was in the detention center, there were 42 people in a very tiny space — like two people per square meter. And I met this man, this dad who has been working for 15 years in construction in Oakland, and he has a nine year-old and a five year-old, and he was going to be deported because he didn't have documents. So when you look into the eyes of that brother or talk to his children, there's no way that you cannot do something.  Sarah van Gelder: I was at your arraignment hearing in Oakland and I saw so many people there who loved you so much. Pancho Ramos-Stierle: I'm happy you were able to witness—and you know what this is, sister Sarah? We are the early adopters of a revolution of values, and we are the evidence that the totalitarianism of corporate capitalism—the machine that has devastated the planet and human beings—we are the demonstration that system doesn't work and that we need a new system. Our movement is trying to give birth and move from scarcity to abundance, from transaction to trust, from consumption to contribution, from isolation to community, from perfection to wholeness, from terror to fearlessness, from violence to courage and respect and love, and this is the key. The emergence of the new paradigm and our victory is not putting people in power but power in people. Sarah van Gelder is Executive Editor of YES! Magazine where you can read her blog. © 2012 YES! Magazine All rights reserved. View this story online at: http://www.alternet.org/story/154352/

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"The master class has always declared the wars; the subject class has always fought the battles. The master class has had all to gain and nothing to lose, while the subject class has had nothing to gain and everything to lose--especially their lives." Eugene Victor Debs